KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Alaskan Ultra Challenge athletes headed to Denver
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by John Carpenter
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The Sadler's Ultra Challenge is taking a hiatus this year, but that doesn't mean Alaska's Ultra Challenge athletes will be spending the summer lazing in the sun.
Challenge Alaska, organizers of the Fairbanks to Anchorage Ultra Challenge, billed as the toughest handcycle and wheelchair race in the world, decided not to hold the event this year. Instead, they'll spend the summer retooling and reconfiguring the race, looking to improve the course and make it safer for its 25th anniversary run in 2009.
But that left the eight Alaskans who regularly compete in the Ultra Challenge, without a race this summer.
So, Challenge Alaska officials gathered up enough sponsors to foot the bill to send those athletes to the Rocky Mountain Cycling Omnium in Denver, Colorado. That event is a three-day race June 6-8, drawing more than 400 cyclists and handcyclists.
Mark Hufford, a veteran of the Ultra Challenge is excited not only to have a race to focus on this summer, but to have the chance to show the rest of the world what Alaskan racers are made of.
"We want to do good as Alaskan racers. This is a big chance to show we race and compete with the rest of the world," he said.
Michael O'Neill is also happy to travel to Denver, though he's wary his days of racing on Parks Highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage will leave him ill prepared for the rigors of racing in the big city.
"It's a new type of race, you know corners and turns and all that within the city and I'm just used to going down the road straight," he said.
At least O'Neill and his fellow Alaskan racers will now have a course to navigate, until the Ultra Challenge returns in 2009.
Contact John Carpenter at jcarpenter@ktuu.com
